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A Night Under the Northern Lights

George Preoteasa, Member 41,445, joined us on our 2022 Sky Holiday to Canada to see the Northern Lights. On his last night he set up a camera by the lake taking time-lapse pictures for 6 hours from 10pm. The film is about 4 minutes long and ends with clouds rolling in, while the aurora green is still the dominant light.

South Texas Tower

David Fitch is an artist residing in Texas and Maine.  He told us, “as a private pilot I spend alot of time looking at clouds, mostly trying to figure out how to get over, under, around or through them. So their ever-changing shape is of keen interest to me. As an artist I thoroughly enjoy recreating these forms like this one which represents a summer afternoon Cumulus congestus fueled by the warm moist air coming off the Gulf of Mexico in South Texas”.

You can see more of his work on his website

A mixed sky over the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

THE SKY WITHOUT CLOUDS

Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson, sent us this poem reflecting on sky.  We’ve paired it with this mixed sky over the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia by Ebony Willson, Member 53,124

The Sky Without Clouds

A day without clouds is the sky at its least.
We had one here just recently.
Be they piles, or wisps, or fantastic shapes,
they continue to fascinate me.

They pose, slowly move, or they change all the time.
They’re now like a scatt’ring of sheep —
hurrying, scurrying, playing around
just below tops of the high mountain peaks.

© Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson 2022

                                ~ ~ ~ ~~ 
                    *AKA Dee Strickland Johnson

Ocean Cloud Scape

Rebecca Hosking, an Australian photographer, has shared a second timelapse video of the ocean cloud scape along the Great Ocean Road, Fairhaven, in Victoria, Australia.

In the Clouds by Ned Stern

Ned Stern has been painting professionally since he graduated from college. He received his degree in Fine Art from The American University in Washington, D.C.  This is one of his recent paintings entitled  “In the Clouds”.  You can see more of his work on his website

A joyful cirrus face over Tucson, Arizona, US.

Keshet Amalia Wistenberg

Keshet Amalia Wistenberg recently sent us this poem to share with the CAS community. We’ve paired it with an image from our Photo Gallery by Ernesto Astiazaran of a joyful cirrus face over Tucson, Arizona, US.

Vantage Point

Fribbling, trotting,
In circles abounding,
Our smidgens of forms
So dear, yet so far.

We click and we squabble,
Enwrangled, surrounding,
By godlies, by froundies,
By tresses of star.

They drift and they float
And they sweep up the foundlings,
Who live in their castles,
Their dreamy memoir.

They follow, they peer at
We short-sighting groundlings,
And ‘member it all
In their mountains on par.

When angry, we quarrel,
With teeth, steam abounding,
When they do, they weep,
As they know what we are.

We’re boorish, we’re legged,
We’re scraggle-pip-thounding,
We’re dirty and little
and thoughtless, wind scar.

They weep and they roar,
Erupt, all propounding,
They do so as schedule
Makes bare who they bar.

For us, we’re the peasants,
sca-venging, sca-rounging,
And them all the king, and the chief
And the tsar.

We imagine a vastly
Built ever so rounding,
For us in the center,
The jam in the jar.

‘Truly?’ ‘Tis factin?’
We shriek, throbbing, pounding,
For deep’st we know’st
Our knowings off par.

The clouds, are our windows,
From here to the bounding,
Old boundary of here
To the great world their from,

The clouds are our windows,
From here to the bounding,
Old boundary of here
To the great world to come.

© Keshet Amalia Wistenberg

From Sherry Palmer

Sherry Palmer, Member 27,151 sent us her recent painting of Beinn Sgritheall, the highest mountain on the Glenelg Peninsula in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland.

Spectacle by Daryl D Johnson

Daryl D Johnson, member 45,193 is an artist based in New Orleans. She told us “Surrounding my studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA are spectacular skies and sunsets. I paint to express the exploding chi of clouds”.

The Sunrise from Alps to Apennines – November 2022

Massimiliano Squadroni has sent the latest time-lapse video.  He told us “it’s a journey above the clouds that begins at the snow-covered Gavia Pass, rises to the peaks of Monte Rosa, bivouac in front of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo illuminated by the first light of day, flies over the Auronzo valley and the Sella Pass, the clouds are colored like in an aurora, the Apennines, the mists of Pian Grande hide what remains of the town of Castelluccio”.

Heavenly “Boo!”

Sherman Schapiro, Member 56,083, sent this short poem inspired by our Halloween Cloud-a-Day – an Altocumulus ‘supercilium’, a cloud term yet to be recognised as an official one, spotted haunting the sky over San Anselmo, California, US by Lee FitzGerald (Member 50,400).

Heavenly “Boo!”

Eerie skies above,
like tentacles descending.
Clouds for Hallowe’en.

© Sherman Schapiro

Cinema & Clouds

Sandro Lecca (Member 58,283), who is based in Sardinia, Italy, has put together a compilation of classic cloud-themed scenes from the world of cinema. Including clips from directors like Arnold Fanck in the 1920s, Sergei Eisenstein in the 1930s, Roberto Rossellini in the 1950s right up to those of the modern day, ‘Cinema e Nuvole’ is Sandro’s homage to the sky in movies. You’ll find the sources of the clips he featured listed at the end.

Cloud Appreciation Society

Samual Wagner (AKA The Reverend Sam), was taking a cross-country train trip through the USA in the summer of 2019.  He told us “One day in the dining car I met the nicest old lady.  We shared pictures of clouds, and she introduced me to the Cloud Appreciation Society.  The clouds were so beautiful and she was so sweet I had to make a song about it”

From Guo Wei

Guo Wei, Member 57,319, wrote this poem after seeing Circumzenithal Arc when leaving home one morning.  The image shared here was taken on a walk in Beichen Mountain, Xiamen, China

《解构与重组——环天顶弧之歌》

每一天
我站在原地
万事万物流过我
以气息、话语、文字
咀嚼的质地
或只是纯粹明暗的光线
渐变的波长、频谱
穿透我
用一切确定与不确定性,将我
扭转、分散、符号化

风把我的碎片卷曲、打包
投向高空的尘埃和冰晶,以及大气中
无法自证其存在的颗粒
于是我习惯性在清早眺望太阳凝望的方向
终见天空微笑

© Guo Wei

Wistful Dreaming by Michelle Purves

Michelle Purves, Member 59,285, is besotted by clouds and she tells us “my passion is to paint the ever illusory, changing, ethereal beauty that connects sky to the landscape.  In Australia my inspiration comes from the remote pristine inlets, and the continuum of soaring skies”.

Cirrus uncinus

Sherman Schapiro (Member 56,083) of Eureka, CA, USA wrote this Haiku after seeing the Cloud-a-Day of 14th August 2022. We’ve accompanied it with the image used in that Cloud-a-Day which was taken by Celia Quinn (member 53,053) and shows Cirrus uncinus clouds over Mount Pinos in the Transverse Ranges, South California, US

Cirrus uncinus

Those wispy wonders;
Kitelike clouds fly high above,
Spirits in the sky.

© Sherman Schapiro

CLOUDSHIP, SPACESHIP

Ric Johnson has written “Cloudship, Spaceship”, a poem based on this photograph he took which was obviously a flying saucer disguised as a cloud!

CLOUDSHIP, SPACESHIP

Oh, gorgeous saucer
Cruising, skirting
Clouded skies.

Slim saucer surveying
A cloudship sweeping
In trim exercise.

Cloudship as spaceship
Skims on patrol
Perhaps us they despise.

Camouflaged spaceship
Cunning as cloud
And quietly spies.

Marauding she gleams
A sauntering dreamer
Our world she defies.

Assessing, digesting
Thinking, deciding
As time flies.

Such spirit of travel
Exploring new dawns
While thought multiplies.

In our world unread
We battle away
Unaware of surprise.

Deceiving me here
She’s nothing but vapour
As the crow flies.

Gleaming creature depart
Away from our years
Leaving us to our skies.

Unforming, dissolving
Maybe sensing our sorrows
As Earth cries.

© Ric Johnson – Another Liverpool Poet

Sunrise and Moon

Massimilano Squadroni sent us his latest timelapse “Sunrise and Moon”.  It was filmed on 13th July 2022 at Osservatorio Capanna Regina Margherita, a mountain hut belonging to the Italian Alpine Club located on the summit of Punta Gnifetti of Monte Rose near the border between Italy and Switzerland.  He told us “The moon sets in the sea of clouds, the climbers leave the hut, bright spots along the way back, the sunrise from Punta Gnifetti is a unique emotion”

The Clouds of Life by Rachel Jacobs

Rachel Jacobs, Member 55,934 wrote told us she “created a poem for the firmly-minded purpose of the well-being of the clouds”.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The Clouds of Life

A round of life, and that of death

Who beckons those away.

Who steals the knife, who steals the breath

Of those who yearn to stay.


Of brevity, of shortness

Rather infant fresh demise,

Of lives and souls of drifting wisps,

Of youth with all but lies.


To them they are of Cirrus

Who crane their necks to see,

A faintly there, but there alas,

Of actuality.


Of those who seek revenge,

Who sought and seek and went,

To all the spitting measures

But never reached content.


Altocumulus they turn,

Their souls reach up and are,

Through hills and dales they try and fail

A moon without a star.


And gentlemen and ladies

With motives good and true, 

Who shine through after darkness

And honour through and through,


These noble ones at heart,

Who learned in the lore,

Become all the fair cumulus

In kindness evermore.


And it comes, by-and-by,

From solid, sinking, be,

To serene drifting sighs,

Of man dustpaned by me.


Swept away by rolls of clouds

With kerchief, breath and shroud,

For life nor death can sunder

All the love to man endowed.


© Rachel Jacobs 2022

Winter Clouds

Lucretia Bingham, member 53,512, recently completed this painting of winter clouds – all silver threads and golden needles, pierced with greys.

A Haven in the Clouds

Dave Loewenstein, Member 58,926, created this cloud-themed mural entitled “A Haven in the Clouds”.  The mural in central Kansas, designed and painted with local high school students, imagines a bird’s eye (or satellite’s) view above clouds that spell out the town’s name, Haven, and if you look closely, Heaven, thanks to the letter E that appears one of the farm fields.

ou can see more about it on Dave’s website – DaveLoewenstein.com

Supercell over Vercelli, Italy

Massimiliano Squadroni, shared this timelapse of the formation of a supercell on Saturday 28 May, which affected the Vercelli area in north Italy with violent rain, hail and gusts of wind.

The storm system is seen from the terrace of Capanna Gnifetti 3647, Monte Rosa, Italy